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TRUE DEMOCRACY— HISTORY VINDICATED. 




SPEECH 



OF 



HON. C. H. VAN AVYCK, OF NEW YORK. 



Delivered in the House of Kepresentatives, March 7, 1860. 



3 



The House being in Committee of the Whole 
on the state of the Union — 

Mr. VAN WYCK said: 

Mr. Chairman : For many weeks I was a pa- 
tient listener to eloquent speeches from the lead- 
ers of the so-called Democratic party on the lioor 
of this Hoase. 

AYliy do they charge the Repablicang as agi- 
tator:"!, when they themselves have been sound- 
ing the notes of disunion, and preaching violence, 
for the only purpose of alarming the timidity of 
one and the weakness of another s^ction of a 
common country ; of arraying faction against 
faction ; first, to steel the heart against all sen- 
timents of humanity, and then nerve the arm to 
execute its unholy impulses ; charging treason 
upon the North, and counselling the South to re- 
bellion and resistance? 

AVhen you, gentlemen, came to this Capitol, the 
agitation occasioned by the Harper's Ferry riot 
was subsiding. In the discharge of what you 
call a patriotic duty, you gathered together the 
elements of that unfortunate strife, and increased 
the turbulence in the public mind. 

The storm which gathered for a moment across 
a summer sky, then broke in the sunshine and 
dissipated in the rain drops, you call back, and 
by the eloquence of words and the impulse of 
fear, in the "chambers of your imagery" you 
generate a storm whereby you seek to send forth 
hurricane and tempest to prostrate the oaks and 
temples of the Republic in one common ruin. 
The torch of the incendiary had been smothered, 
and you seize the blackened flambeau, rush forth 
with the madness and folly of the suicide, and es- 
say to light up the flames of civil war and fra- 
tricidal strife. 

You, gentlemen, and not John Brown, have 
unchained the whirlwind of angry passion and 
bitter invective ; you have unbarred the thunder 
and loo ened the lightning shaft, whereby you 
sought to rend asunder the people of a great 
nation, so that, in your own language on this 



floor, the " Union might be wrecked from turret 
to foundation stone," and "the Constitution tora 
in tatters." Then from the ruins of one, and the 
dismembered body of the other, you might erect 
a confederacy cemented by the blood, watered 
by the tears, and strengthened by the groans of 
your bondmen; which would fill the measure of 
your avarice and feed the cravings of your am- 
bition. 

Day after day, with the most vindictive lan- 
guage, have we been arraigned as guilty of ar- 
son, treason, and murder; so base was the charge, 
so unjust the imputation, we meet them with our 
weapons at rest. 

The gentleman from Louisiana, [Mr. David- 
son,] whose ambition at one time seemed to be 
that he might appear in this Hall armed with a 
double-barrel shot gun, in his speech on the 22d 
day of December, in a defiant manner, said : 

" I honestly bclievo tbat if you were tried before a jury of 
conscientious men, ajury of men who believe in a God of all 
justice anil mercy, anU all intelligence, you would be found 
guilty, ;is accessories before the fact, to all the dreadful deeds 
of Brown aud bis associates." 

You talk of God, justice, andmeraj, who hold, 
claiming by Divine authority, four million hu- 
man beings in hopeless and irretrievable bond- 
age, and ostracize free white men who will not 
sing hosannas to your trafiic in the bodies and 
souls of men, and stigmatize as murderers and 
felons those who will not applaud the cruelty 
which tramples upon all the attributes of the 
mind, the attections of the heart given by the 
Almighty to the children of His own creation! 

That same gentleman desired to present to the 
consideration of this House one of John Brown's 
pikes ; let me urge him to extend his cabinet of 
curiosities and add one of the cba-ns and brand- 
ing irons of his coiSe gang, tied by the lash with 
which the backs of women and children are 
scourged, and then, to watch them, a sleek, well- 
fed bloodhound, with quick scent, trained to 
snuff in the air the track of the fleeing fugitive; 






let him present these as symbols, the one of 
Brown's folly, and the others of his own high 
type of civilization. 

' From the deluge of Democratic speeches, I 
learu that the alpha and omega of your religion 
and Democracy are the divinity and benehts of 
human servitude. You are continually forcing 
this issue upon us. Said the Democratic Senator, 
[Mr. BiGLEB,] a few weeks since, in the Senate 
Chamber ; 

" From the hour I first camo into political life, to tbe pres- 
ent dcay, I have uovor gono tbrougii a iiolitlcal campaigu m 
whicirtUc rights of tlio SoalU were nut an important, if not 
the leading issue." 

The leprosy of slavery is " in the warp and 
woof" of your organization. When the Demo- 
cratic Convention, in 1856, endorsed the policy of 
Franklin Pierce in the destruction of the Mis- 
souri line and his Kansas forays, I became sat- 
isfied that its orgauization was in the hands of 
the slave power, and that it was hereafter to be 
used to extend slavery wherever the flag of the 
Union might float, and forgetful of its ancient 
glories, had made alli'giance to slavery propa- 
gandism the tost of good fellowship. With many 
Democrats throughout the Union, I could no 
longer worship the divinity when the spirit had 
fled. The system under which we had grown to 
be a great and happy people, which had been 
engrafted on the laws and policy of Democratic 
Administrations, and was entwined in the ex- 
pressions of speech and habitudes of thought, 
was stricken down by the rude hand of invasion. 
Tbe first attack commenced in 1850, but in 1852 
the Democratic Convention professed to check 
the invader ; and while it did not propose to re- 
pair the breach, it promised to stay his destructive 
hand. And Pierce, in his inaugural, promised 
that he would cicatrize the wound, by an assur- 
ance that no fresh incursions should be made. 
In 1854 the invader commenced sapping and 
mining, seized the outworks, toppled tbe battle- 
ments to the ground, stormed the strong fortress, 
and obtained possession. The spirit of Democ- 
racy, thus driven from her own home, erected its 
standard; and while the glory of many achieve- 
ments remained with the old organization, the 
fame and honor of its ancient faith gathered le- 
gions of its former victorious armies, who be- 
lieved in Democracy because of its principles, 
and embracing the principles, assumed the name 
under which Jefferson triumphed. Could it be 
expected that we should sit quietly by and see 
the acts of every Democratic Administration re- 
buked ; could we hold political fellowship with 
those who were willing to crucify the memory 
of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe; 
could we calmly witness the desecration which 
could say that the men who made the Constitu- 
tion, and hewed out the path which has led to 
glory, knew not its provisions, and understood 
not its spirit? And because I refuse to unite in 
this unholy work of demolition, and lay my 
hands on the uniform and time-honored legisla- 
tion of three-fourths of a century ; because I 
would not unite in this assault upon the mem- 
ory of the buried dead ; because I would not rise 
up and declare their legislation unjust, uncon- 



stitutional, and with abolition tendencies, am I 
to be reproached as an apostate from Democ- 
racy ? Sir, I would ralher desert a political or- 
ganization, than to turn traitor to my own con- 
science, and be guilty of moral treason to my 
own judgment. 

I question no man's right to change his relig- 
ious or political views; but 1 demand, as justice, 
that when I profess the faith, I shall be recog- 
nised as adhering to the policy, of the Demo- 
cratic fathers. 

The Christian may turn Jaw or Mohammedan; 
but how would you stigmatize him, should he 
insist upon substituting the new doctrines under 
the name of the faith he abandoned? The liberty- 
loving Democrat may become a slavery propa- 
gandist; but how will history judge his attempt 
to hide the enormities of his position under the 
mantle of his ancient name, and rendezvous with 
his confederates in the temple Jefferson built, 
and Madison, Monroe, and Jackson, guarded 
with so much care? The patent of my Democ- 
racy is in the records of Democratic Administra- 
tions, and by it I stand or fall. 

As a Democrat, I believe slavery to be a crime 
against the laws of God and nature, violative of 
the instincts of a common humanity; that it de- 
grades the African, paralyzes the energies of the 
Anglo-Saxon, prevents the full development of 
the resources of the country, and granting to the 
masses of the people but little of material pros- 
perity and happiness. 

I believe that each State is supreme in its 
own borders, uncontrolled by foreign power ; at 
liberty to retain or revive relics of a barbarous, 
unchristian age, whether they be slavery or po- 
lygamy. 

I believe that the Territories belong to the 
people, and not the States ; and that the Repre- 
sentatives of the people have the sole control 
and management thereof until they become 
States; and that Congress should protect them 
from everything which would have a tendency 
to retard their settlement or diminish their 
value; and, as tbe entire history of the world 
shows, and our own country establishes, that 
slavery is a mildew and blight, that Congress 
should keep free territory free during its terri- 
torial condition, unless for any cause it dele- 
gates such power to be exercised by the people 
therein. 

I believe that slavery is a local institution, 
existing entirely and sustained alone by virtue 
of the law of the State which creates it, not rec- 
ognised as such beyond the State limits, only so 
far as the Constitution of the United States re- 
gards the right of each State to retake, and the 
obligation of sister States to return, fugitives 
from justice or labor. 

Such, sir, is the platform of the E,epubUcaa 
party. Does it not contain the recorded princi- 
ples of the Democratic party, and of all parties, 
from the adoption of the Constitution down to 
1847? 

Listen to a resolution of the gallant State of 
Georgia, whose entire delegation on this floor 
and in the Senate make loud and valorous boasts 
that no man elected on the Republican platform 



shall ever be inaugurated President. On the 
12th day of January, 1775, she said : 

" To show the world that we are not inQuenced by any in- 
terested or contracted motives, but a general philanthropy 
for all mankind, ot whatever language or complexion, we 
hereby declare our disapprobation and abhorrence of the 
unnatural practice ofsla\-eryin America — a practice founded 
in injustice and cruelty, and highly dangerous to our liber- 
ties, debasing part of our fellow-creatures below men, and 
corrupting the virtue and morals of the rest, and is laying 
the basis of that liberty we contend for upon a very wrong 
foundation. We therefore resolve at all times to use our ut- 
most endeavors for the manumission of our slaves in this 
colony, upon the most safe and equitable footing for the mas- 
ters and thymseivos."' 

Men of Georgia, go by the graves of your 
fathers, renew your love of country, and recall 
your treasonable designs. The serious charges 
you make against us but react upon the memory 
of your ancestors. We stand this day on the 
Georgia resolutions of 1775. Such were the 
sentiments of all the patriots of the Revolution. 
Under their influence, your fathers — I mean your 
liberty-loving fathers, for I suppose the Tories 
of Georgia did not, even in that day, subscribe 
to the above resolutions — aided to achieve the 
freedom of our country. The desire of universal 
liberty warmed the heart of the American sol- 
dier; and, in the hope of its final establishment 
and full fruition, he sacrificed property and life. 
By men breathing such sentiments, the Constitu- 
tion and Union were established ; and now you 
say that the mere enunciation of the same princi- 
ples must produce dissolution, anarchy, and a 
reign of terror. 

Washington said, in 1786 : 

" Itbviug among my first wishes y) see some plan adopted 
by which slavery in this country maj' bo abolished by law." 

Franklin, who lent the powers of a great soul 
to achieve our independence, and then brought 
the wisdom of a great mind to aid in construct- 
ing a Constitution, became, almost immediately 
after its adoption, president of an Abolition so- 
ciety. 

Madison said : 

" We have seen mere distinction of color made, in the most 
enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive 
dominion ever exercised by man over man." 

Mr. Henry said : 

"I deplore slavery with all the pity of humanity ; I repeat 
again, it would rejoice my soul that every one of my fellow- 
bomgs was emancipated." 

Mr. Jetferson said : 

" And With what execration should the statesman be load- 
ed, who, permitting one half of the citizens thus to trample 
on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots and 
these into enemies. Indeed, I tremble for my country when 
I reflect that God is just ; that His justice cannot sleep for- 
ever. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, 
than that thesj people are to be free. What a stupendous, 
what an incomprehensible machine is man, who can endure 
toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vin- 
dication of his own liberty, and the next moment be deaf to 
all those motives whose power supported him through his 
trials, and inflict on his fellow-men a bondage, one hour of 
which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which 
he rose in rebellion to oppose ! When the measure of their tears 
shall be full ; when their groans shall have involved heaven 
itself in darkness, doubtless a God of justice will awaken to 
their distress, and, by diffusing, light and liberality kmong 
their oppressors, or, at length, by His exterminating thun- 
der, manifest His attention to the things of this world, and 
that thoy are not left to the guidance of a blind fatality." 

Dare you, now, believe these sentiments ? 
Would you suffer a press in the Southern States 
to publish them? Would you allow a man, ex- 



cept under pain of death, to read them in the 
ears of your slaves ? And must I be expatriated 
and disfranchised because I merely re-echo them ? 
Sir, these principles were born in the shock of 
the Revolution, and were baptized in the blood 
of your fathers and mine on the battle-fields oi 
the North and South. In the light of so univer- 
sal a sentiment of universal liberty among the 
patriot fraitiers of the Constitution, will you say 
that the Declaration of ludependence is but a 
" glittering generality ? " When the pillars of 
the Republic shall have crumbled in the dust; 
when her libraries shall have been sacked and 
burned ; when a free press and free speech shall 
be dragged, as Hector, at the chariot wheels of 
a slave oligarchy ; when the traditions of the 
the battle-fields of arms and opinions of the 
Revolution shall be forgotten by an unworthy 
posterity, then tell them that th^ great Bill 
of Rights for all mankind was but a glittering 
generality. No, sir ; our fathers threw it out, 
not as a wandering comet, to dazzle for a mo- 
ment by its brilliant coruscations, but as a sun, 
far above the mists and exhalations of avarice 
and power, to shine upon and for all, to the re- 
motest generations. 

Such sentiments were repeated by your great 
men in Virginia in 1832, shortly after the slave 
insurrection at Southampton, when over sixty of 
your white persons were slain. They were then 
in convention, discussing the question of emanci- 
pation ; and when all the horrors of a servile war 
were fresh in their memories, your statesmen 
proposed to remedy the evil, not by the peniten- 
tiary and gallows, but by applying the principle 
of universal liberty. Such were the opinions of 
Moore, Rives, Powell, Preston, Randolph, Mar- 
shall, and a host of others. 

McDowell said : 

" You may eiose upon his mind ever}' avenue to knowl- 
edge, and cloud it over with artificial night — yoke him to 
your labor as an ox. You may do this, and the idea that ho 
was born to be free will survive it all ; it is allied to his hope 
of immortality ; it is the ethereal part of his nature, which 
oppression cannot reach ; it is a torch lit up in his soul by 
the hand of the Deity, and never meant to be extinguished 
by the hand of man. If goutlemen do not see or feel this 
evil of slavery whilst the Federal Union lasts, they will see 
and feel it when it is gone. We cannot correct the march of 
time, nor stop the current of events." 

Among the number who thus spoke was Charles 
J. Faulkner, who lately has avowed so much of 
disunion, and been duly rewarded by an appoint- 
ment at the hands of this slavery-controlled Ad- 
ministration. The disunionist Faulkner is wor- 
thy a foreign appointment; while the disunion- 
ists Phillips and Garrison would only be worthy 
of stripes and imprisonment. Disunion for 
slavery or for freedom are quite different things. 
Mr. Faulkner, on the 20th day of January, 1832, 
speaking of emancipation, said : 

" I shall reckon it among the proudest incidents of my liffi, 
that I have contributed my feeble aid to forward a revolution 
so grand and patriotic in its results. The people demand it. 
I have raised my voice for emancipation. Sir, tax my lands ; 
vilify our country ; carry the sword of extermination through 
our now defenceless villages; but spare us, I implore you, 
spare us the curse of slavery, that bitterest drop from the 
chalice of the destroying angel." 

This he said while the soil of Virginia was yet 
moist with the blood of hia murdered country- 
men. He farther added : 



" Slaves are held, not by any law of natnrc, not by any 
patent from God. Sir, I am gratiDud to perceive that no gen- 
tleman has yet risen in tiiis hall the avowed advocate of 
Bluvery. The day has »;one by when such a voice could be 
lisleued to wi'.h patience or forbearance." 

Men of Virginia, can you believe that such 
opinion3 were uttered in the Old Dominion scarce 
thirty yc^ars ago ? Now, take down Helper ; place 
them side by side, and determine which id the 
more treasonable and incendiary. How can you 
"rest o' nights'' while such seatiments are slum- 
bering in the debates and archives of your Com- 
monweahh? Get some country squire to pro- 
nounce j udgmeut, and commit them to the flames. 
Formerly, the courts of nearly all your States 
held that slavery was merely a right existing by 
positive law of a municipal character, without 
loundation in the law of nature. 

Coiij^rciS. guided by the prevailing sentiment 
of the nation, exercised its power over free terri- 
tory by prohibiting slavery. This was the uni- 
versal action of Congress, unless it v/as restrained 
by the act of purchase or cession. In the terri- 
tory ceded to the General Government by the 
Caiolinas and Georgia, these States, in ceding, 
expressly did so on the condition that Congress 
shonld not prohibit slavery iheiein. Tnose 
States, which had but recently been discussing 
the national Constituiion, were presumed to be 
well informed as to its spirit and provisions ; and 
the mere fact of their restraining Congress was 
an acknowledgment on their part that Congress 
did have the right to exercise the power, and 
they desired to guard agaiust it. When Louis- 
iana was purchased, Napoleon, in the treaty of 
Bale, provided that the rights of the inhabitants 
ehoitld be protected; and one of those rights 
then existing was slavery, dngress, however, 
did interfere, and exercise a power over the Ter- 
ritories, bj' prohibiting the foreign and domestic 
elave trade. 

From the ordinance of I'TST, prohibiting 
slavery in the territory northwest of the Ohio, 
down to 1848, Congress, on eighteen different 
occasions, and during each Democratic Adminis- 
tration, did, without mterruption or rebuke, ex- 
ercise the power of governing the Territories, 
furnishing their officers, and retaining a negative 
or approval upon the acts of respective Territo- 
rial Legislatures. In the case of Florida, Con- 
gress, five times, between 1823 and 1838, ap- 
proved of, and eleven times, during the same pe- 
riod, amended the laws of her Legislature. 

Tiic people will not, if gentlemen on this floor 
dare, impugn the Democracy of Jackson. Du- 
ring his Administration, in 1836, a law was 
passed, declaring "that no act of the Territorial 
Legislature incorporating any banking institu- 
tion, hereafter to be passed, shall have any force 
or effect whatever until approved or confirmed 
by Congress." Twice did Jackson arrest the 
Legislatures of Wisconsin and Florida in viola- 
tion oi' this law. This pow?r was questioned in 
1820, when Mr. Monroe (and all his Cabinet, 
with possibly the exception of Mr. Calhoun, a 
majority of whom were slaveholders) and his 
Democratic Administration acknowledged the 
right, and approved its exercise. 

Even in 1848, Mr. Polk signed, and a Demo- 



cratic Administration approved, the Oregon bill, 
in which slavery was prohibited. It is said Mr. 
Poik approved the bill because the Territory lay 
north of 36° 30''. That does not weaken the 
force of the a.rgument that he recognised the 
existence of the power, from the fact of exer- 
cising it. The line of 36° 30'', by its very terms, 
only extended to the Louisiana purchase, and 
could not be applied to any other Territory, un- 
less especially enacted. It did not reach west 
of the Rocky Mountains : and when the South 
insisted that the line, in 1847-"48, should be ex- 
tended to the Pacific, the very fact that they 
urged an extension of the line by Congress is 
an irresistible argument that they believed Con- 
gress had the power so to extend it. They 
claimed that, in the spirit of the legislation of 
1820, the line should be extended to the Pacific. 
Tnetj did not question the p iver of Coni/ress so long 
as they hoped to control its exercise. Hence, there 
was no possible restraint on Mr. Polk from veto- 
ing the Oregon bill, had he or his party believed 
Congress possessed no such power. Polk had 
only to restrain legislation, not t') undo, but to 
keep from doing, in order to save the Constitu- 
tion. 

In 1854, the Democratic party believed, or 
professed to believe, that Coui^ress had no such 
power, and it had no hesitation in destroying 
the work of the fathers. By way of episode, 
allow me to add that Mr. Buchanan, ot Lancas- 
ter, November 23, 1819, offered a re.^olution that 
the Representatives in Congress ar^ most ear- 
nestly "requested to use their utmost endeavors, 
as members of the JS^ational Legi^l-ture, to pre- 
vent the extension of slavery in any of the Ter- 
ritories or Slates which may be cr- ated by Con- 
gress.'' Does Mr. Buchanan occupy that posi- 
tion to-day? He went a step further in behalf 
of freedom than the Republicans on this floor. 
Was Mr. Buchanan a murderer and traitor in 
1819? 

In 1810 and 1828, the Supreme Court of the 
United States recognised and- affirmed this power 
of Congress under the Constitution. 

Such is the uniform and concurrent historical, 
legislative, and judicial history of thi'; subject, 
down to 1848. At that time, the fruitful valleys 
and rich mines of California aroused the lust of 
gain and desire for power in the breast of the 
slaveholder. They sought a m.irket on the Pa- 
cific coast for their human mercliandise, and were 
avaricious for the control of that princely do- 
main, and they knew their only way was through 
and over the well-defined legislation of the coun- 
try. They also knew the influence a few slave 
owners would exercise ; that less thnn three hun- 
dred thousand controlled fifteen ;L-;:ate& of the 
Union, and they sought to take the arm of Con- 
gress between their unholy desires and the ob- 
ject of their ambition. Lewis Cass was easily 
moulded to their purposes. In his f imous Nichol- 
son letter, which procured ibr him the title of 
father of squatter sovereignty, he says : 

" I am strorgly impressed with the Oj)iiiion that a gi-cat 
change has been going on in the public mind upon this sub- 
ject — in my own as well as others." 

Change from what ? Clearly from the restrict- 



.«r 



s 



ive polioy of Congress. If squatter sovereignty 
had always been the faith of the party, there was 
no occasion for a change. In the same letter, he 
declares the result of the change to be," leaving 
the people of the Territories to regulate their in- 
ternal concerns in their own way; they are just 
as capable of doing so as the people of the 
States." This was to be the open-sesame for the 
extension of slavery on the Pacific coast. It was 
all the slave power demanded. Under it they 
expected to expand and conquer. But the swift 
current of events brought California into the 
Union before Ihey could stake the hazard on 
the race ; and this day we rejoice that, in the 
land of the serting sun, the clanking chains of 
oppression grate not with nature's harmony, and 
her soil is not wet with the sweat and tears and 
blood of the slave. 

In 18-17, thi- Northern Democracy did not doubt 
the coL_...utional right of Congress to prohibit 
slavery in the Toriitories, but claimed that Con- 
gress should not act upon the subject until the 
war with Mexico was terminated, and it should 
be first ascertained whether we were to acquire 
additional domain. The Legislatures of all the 
Democratic fiee ."■ tates, save one, passed resolu- 
tions demanding that slavery should be prohibit- 
ed in the Territories. At that time Lewis Cass 
was not nominated for the Presidency, and amid 
the " noise and confusion " of that session, the 
change had not commenced coming over " the 
spirit of his dream," for in the Senate he nowhere 
denied the power of Congress, at the proper time, 
to restrict slavery. 

Daniel S. Dickinson, whose Democracy has 
never been questioned south of Mason and Dix- 
on's line, said in yonder Senate Chamber, on the 
1st day of March, 1847 — for he had not yet expe- 
rienced a change of heart, although he shortly 
after became au anxious inquirer when he heard 
the blowing of the South wind : 

" I would not have added one single word upon the sub- 
ject of slavery : but it is due to the occasion that my views 
upon it should be fully understood. So I'ar as I am advi.scd 
or believe, the great mass of the 'people of the North enter- 
tain but one opinion on the subject, and that is the same 
which was entertained by many at the South. They regard 
the institutioi] as a gi eat'moral and political evil, and would 
that it had uo existence. But being an institution of local 
sovereignty, they deny that such sovereignty, or its people, 
can justly "claim the right to regard it as tr.ansitory, and to 
erect it in the territory of the United States without the author- 
ity of Congress, and they believe that Congress may pro- 
hibit its iiitrodi.ct;on into the Territories while they remain 
such." 

Commenting upon the resolution of New York 
demanding: a fundamental provision restraining 
slavery from the Territories, he continued : 

"The Territory ■rontcni plated is California, which is now 
free, and if it is "obtained by us it will be free until it is in- 
corporated by us, and cannot become slave territory with- 
out the legislation of Congress ; and in and by such legisla- 
tion a fundamental article prohibiting slavery can be prop- 
erly insert-ed. This resolution , then , instructs us that, when 
any territory shall be brought within our jurisdiction by tho 
act of Congress, whatever that act may be, to insert in such 
act a funciamontal clause prohibiting slavery; and so I am 
ready to vote, instructed or uuinstructed." 

But be was not willing to insert it in an ap- 
propriafioa bill. On the same day, Hon. Reverdy 
Johnson, then a Whig Senator from Maryland, 
now one of the leaders of the slavery-extending 
Democracy, said : 



"I believe, 1 have ever believed' since I was capable of 
thought, that sla^-ery is a gi-eat affliction to any country 
where it prevails; and so believing, I can never vote for any 
measure calculated to enlarge Its area, and to render more 
permanent its duration ; and above ail, disf^iise it as wo 
may, if the laws of population shall not be changed by Provi- 
dence, or man's nature shall not be change.d, it is an institu- 
tion sooner or later pregnant with fearful mischief. Tho 
opinion I hold upon this institution is not now f.jr the first 
time formed or expressed by a Southern man. Tlio history 
of our country proves this. At the period of (ho Declaration 
of our Independence, at tho period of this Constitution, there 
was but one sentiment upon the subject auiong enlightened 
Southern i^tatesmcn. AVhat I h;ive said was, on every proper 
occasion, more forcibly said by thom, and as foremost among 
them, ilessrs. Jofl'erson and iladisou." 

Now, sir, do Mr. Dickinson and his friends, 
and Mr. Johnson and his friends, occupy that 
position ? The Republican party is standing 
this day on the platform they gave us in 1 847. 
Were they murderers and traitors ? Why should 
we be now ? 

In December, 1847, Mr. Dickinson began to 
bend before the southern blast, and he intro- 
duced a resolution in the Senate — ■ 

" That the tn;e spirit and meaning of tho Constitution will 
be best observed, ai-d tho Conlederacy strcnglheued, by 
leaving all riueslion.^ concerning the domestic policy of the 
Territories to the Legislatures chosen by the people thereof." 

And in his speech on the 12th day of January, 

1848, he said : 

" The resolution declares that the domestic policy of tho 
people of a Territory shall be left with them ; and if that 
iwwer resides in Congress, as is contended," (which he did 
not then deny,) " it should bo delegated to tho people of tho 
Territory, and be exercised by them." 

For the benefit of conservative old-line Whigs, 
Mr; Webster said, August 12, 1848 : 

" We ccrtainivdo not prevent them from going into theso 
Territories with" what is, in general law, called property. 
But these States have by their local laws created a property 
in persons, and they cannot carry their local laws with 
them. Slavery is created and exists by a 'ocal law which is 
limited to a certain section, and it is asked that Congress 
should establish a local la.w in other Terril>'rio.s to eoablo 
Southern Senators to carry their particular law with them. 
Tliere is a belief prevailing that slave labor and free labor 
ca'-inot exist together. Ho had a letter from Mr. Mason, In. 
which it is stated that ' slave labor will cspel free labor.' " 

An irrepressible conflict older than Seward's 
Rochester speech. 

I beg pardon for quoting Mr. Webster. I know 
the latter-day saints in the Democratic party, in 
this and the Senate Chamber, have lately dis- 
covered that the great expounder w.os mistaken 
about the Constitution, as were the fathers and 
framers thereof. Only a few days ago, in the 
Senate, Senator Wigfall said : 

" Why, sir, there was the most distinguished man this? 
country has over seen, Daniel AVebster, the great expounder 
of the Constitution , as be was called ; and I hazard the asser- 
tion, that if there was a single thing about which he was 
more profoundly ignorant than any man iji tho United States, 
it was tho CoDStitulicu of the United St;ites." 

For the benefit of that portion of the Democ- 
racy who are now the se!f-cot7Stituted custodians 
of the memory and reputation of Henry Clay, I 
commend his remarks in the Senate, in 1850: 

" So long as God aHows the vital current to flow through 
my veius, I will never— uo, never— by word or thought, 
by mind or will, aid in admitting one rood of free territory 
to" the everlasting curse ofhuman bondage." 

Were Webster and Clay murderers and trai- 
tors? Then why sre we? Their faith is now our 
political creed. If vre are deserving imprison- 
ment and death, then, hyena-like, go cast your 
harsh denunciations at their rifled graves, expose 



them to political execration, and hang their bones 
from your gibbets in chains. 

In 1848, many Democrats did not experience 
the sudden conversion which overtook Lewis 
Cass, and the stone which was rejected at Phila- 
delphia became the head of the corner at Buffalo, 
and was laid with great care by the Ludlows, 
the Van Burens, the Caggors, the Richmonds, and 
a host of others, among whom it would be dis- 
respectful to omit my distinguished colleague, 
[Mr. John Cochrane.] I have not the honor of 
their political fellowship now, although I never 
deserted the principles they taught me. When 
my friend's [Mr. John Cochrane] attention was 
called to the resolutions at Ulica, he would none 
Of it, but desired to meet at Philippi. Let him 
beware; for on that field may appear to him the 
ghost of the murdered Ca33ar. It might not have 
been at the base of Pompey's pillar he stabbed 
the principles he so earnestly and eloquently — 
and his followers believed honestly — professed ; 
but they stood between him and the aim of his 
ambition. 

Did any Northern Democrat, Hunker or Barn- 
burner, dream, in July, 1S4B, that neither Con- 
gress nor the people could exclude slavery from 
the Territories? No, sir; not one. Greene C. 
Bronson, who, I believe, was never suspected by 
friend or foe of having any Abolition tendencies, 
the hardest granite in the quarry, receiving an 
invitation from Mr. John Cochrane to address a 
political raeetinsr, most respectfully declined. In 
his letter he said : 

" Slavery cannot exLst whoro there is no positive law to 
iipliold it. It is not nc'cessary that it shoiilil bo forbidden ; 
it is enough that it is not specially authorized. Stale laws 
have no extra-territorial authority ; and a law of Virginia, 
which makes a man a slave thi^rc, cannot make him a slave 
ia Now York, nor beyond the Kocky Moimtaius. If our 
Southern brethren wish to carry their slaves to Oregon, New 
Mexico, or Calilornia, they will bo under the necessity of 
asking a law to warrant it ; imd it will then be in time for 
•the free States to resist the measure, a.s I cannot doubt they 
would with unwaveriug firmness. But if our Southern 
brethren should make the question, wo shall have no choice 
biitto meet il ; and then, whatever couscOiUeuces may follow, 
I trust the peo))le of the free States will give a united voice 
against allowing slavery on a single foot of soil where it is 
not now authorized by law." 

Do Mr. Bronson and his friencis now maintain 
that position? This very day, the Republicans 
are occupying that ground. Was he a murderer 
and traitor? Then why are we? 

In 1849, the Democratic party in the State of 
New York became a unit on substantially the 
basis of Mr. Bronson's letter. The slave power 
Roon forced them from it; and from the resolu- 
tions of the united Democracy in that State, the 
Republicans have compiled their political cate- 
chism. 

The compromise measures of 1850 were acqui- 
esced in, for the reason that the Democratic Con- 
vention and Franklin Pierce assured us it was 
the last great tinality ; and as all our territory 
was provided for, the disturbing question could 
never arise. S^'arcely had his pledge reached 
the extreme of the Union, when, like a shock of 
thunder in a clear sky, the public mind was 
startled with the cry of repeal of the Mis'ouri 
line, and the sea of slavery agitation was again 
Ushcd into a furious foa,m. To feed the encroach- 



ing spirit of aggression, the Democratic party 
had to go mousing back thirty years ia order to 
find some law to repeal, to satisfy its insatiable 
desire. Congressional restrictions stood between 
the slave breeders and the golden shores of Cali- 
fornia, and it receded at their command. The 
compromise line which your fathers and ours 
then planted as a barrier oa which might break 
and rebound the dark and advancing wave of 
slavery, stood between them and the rolling 
prairies of Kansas and Nebraska. And the edict 
went forth for its demolition for no other object 
than the spread of slavery. It lay within their 
reaeh, and they supposed would be an easy prey 
to their peculiar iustitution. 

The sword that was to strike down the barrier 
to slavery was to be drawn from the scabbard of 
popular sovereignty. This new doctrine was the 
rallying cry of the Democracy of 185G, and was 
endorsed in Mr. Buchanan's letter of acceptance. 
Who then believed it was a myth, and mean- 
ingless? Were the Northern Democrats told that 
this new opicion was to be supplanted in less 
than four years, and that they must surrender at 
discretion, and recede from the position they 
honestly sustained ? 

The South was again beaten at her own game, 
" for the wicked is snared in the work of his own 
hands ;" but the victory cost Northern freemen 
treasure and blood. The power she so much 
coveted passed from her reach, and, by the retri- 
bution of a wise Providence, she was not allowed 
to reap the hopes of her folly and wickedness : 
'• Like dead sea fruits, 
They turned to ashes on the lips." 

Twice had she struck down the monuments of 
the past to gratify her unholy lu^-t fur gain and 
power, and twice was she prevented from reach- 
ing the crown. The South could have no rest 
while Mordecai sat at the king's giite; while the 
prohibitory clause guarded the freedom of the 
western plains; but she perished on the gallows 
erected for another. Freedom could not be over- 
come by all the power of fraud, of unjust legisla- 
tion, and a willing Executive; iheu sbe must be 
bound and taken in the temple of justice, and 
throttled by a political decision. 

Calhoun and Buchanan, in the Senate of the 
United States, assumed it as a cardinal faith of 
the Democratic party, that one co-ordinate de- 
partment of the Government could not control 
the exercise of the other while acting in its 
proper sphere. 

When did South Carolina experience a baptism 
into this new love and undying allegiance to the 
merging of all departments of Gos^ernmcut into 
the Judiciary? Has ahe forgotten that, in her 
nullifying ordinance of 1832, she weut so far as 
to prohibit any appeal, or the transmission of acy 
records, from her State courts to tbe Supreme 
Court of the United States, under pain vt line and 
imprisonment? 

Let me not be misunderstood ; I yield to no 
man in my devotion to the laws and judicial de- 
cisions ; but I claim the right to seek tbe repeal 
of an unjust law, or the reversal of a decioion 
whicli shocks the humanity ot tbe nation. This 
very hour, Virginia is waging an in'cpressible 



conflict in the Court of Appeals, in the State of 
New York, to nullify one of the humane laws of 
that State, so that slavery may be allowed the 
right, in defiance of State laws, to roam through- 
out the Union. And when Virginia, as she un- 
doubtedly will, notwithstanding her clamor for 
State rights, carries the Lemmon case to the 
Supreme Court of the United States, that court 
\yill sustain Virginia, and then all the States will 
be slave. Even to so outrageous a decision, we 
would not propose armed or factious resistance. 
We would obey it ; but, at the same time, we 
would indulge the hope that the awakening of 
the public mind, the arousing of a righteous in- 
dignation, would send some rays of light down 
into the subterranean vaults from whence Dred 
Scott decisious emanate; that the conscience 
and judgment of the court would see the folly 
and wickedness, and reverse its own decisions. 

We will obey the law, right or wrong ; but 
when we feel and believe it to be wrong, we must 
be allowed an effort to make it right. 

The records of the world show that the last 
and most insidious attacks made on the rights 
of the people have been tbrough the Judiciary, 
flow often has "man looked for judgment and 
beheld oppression." The history of England is 
full of admonition. We cannot forget the Star 
Chamber and High Commission ; with what avid- 
ity English judges were ready to obey the be- 
hests of English monarchs, whether to confiscate 
property or to sacrifice life. The divine right of 
kings received judicial acknowledgment from the 
judges of Charles I, and the right of Parliament I 
to tax the American colonies was protected by 
the bench. What faith, now are the followers of 
the Democratic party called upon to profess? 
Said iMr. Iverson, a few days sin';e, in the Senate 
Chamber: 

" I wish f^.e Democratic party was purer and better than 
it is. I am a afraid it is becoming itself, if not coi-rupl, at 
hast corrupliule." 

On another occasion : 

" But I believe tliat the greater portion of the Northern 
Democratic party — those who beioug to that organization in 
the Northern States — are to-day as ivtien as the Black ile- 
publjcans." 

Corrupt, rotten — expressive adjectives. I make 
no such charges ; but a dignified, venerable, 
gray-headed Democratic Senator thus solemnly 
arraigns the Northern Democracy. At a later 
day, to point his former speeches, he adds : 

" The largo portion, if not the whole, of the Northern De- 
mocracy are unsound. I mean on the question of Territorial 
rights ; their position is quite as fatal to the rights of the 
Soatheru States as the Wilmot proviso itself." 

It is for me to 

" nothing esteniiatn, 
Nor set down aught in malice." 

I only desire the Democracy to see to what in- 
dignities they must be subjected, if they mani- 
fest any unwillingness to bow down and worship 
this black J'lggernaut of slavery. Unsound, 
■rotten, corrupt! To show that slavery propa- 
gandism controls the Democratic party, and is 
DOW moulding its destinies, only notice that Mr. 
Buchanan, in his late message, says: 

"I corUially congratulate you upon the final settlement, 
by the Si;pre!ne Court of the United Stales, of the question 
vi slavery in Uio Territories. The right has been established 



of any citizen to take his property, of any kind, including 
slaves, into the common Territories belonging equally to sijl 
the suites of the Confederacy, and to have it protected there 
under the Federal Constitution. Neither Congress nor a Tor 
riK^ii'ial Legislature, nor any human power, has any authority 
to annul or impair this vested right." 

I ask the Democratic party, where now is yonr 
popular sovereigpty ? Where the right of the 
people of the Territories? What will become ot 
that portion who were leaders of the radical 
Barnburners? What a record will stare them 
in the face ! Free-Soilers in 1843, popular sov- 
ereignty men in 1856, denyers of both in 18G0. 

When did you, gentlemen, first incorporate this 
article into your creed ? Did you believe it when 
you begged from Congress the privilege to retake 
your slaves in the Territories? Did you believe 
it in 1854-'55-.'56, when, at the sacrifice of much 
money and blood, you were determined to force 
slavery into Kansas ? If the people iu that Ter- 
ritory had no right to exclude slavery, you would 
never have waged so cruel and unnatural a war- 
fare. Why did you struggle, if the Constitution 
gave you all you f*Duld obtain after a hard-fought 
victory? No, gentlemen, you never believed it; 
not for one moment. It was not until defeat 
stared you in the face in Kaasa?, that you sought 
to arm yourself with a last and doubtful resort. 

Within a few weeks, the Legislature of Nebras- 
ka by law, prohibited slavery therein; and the 
willing tool of this Administration vetoed the 
bill. The people of that Territory, now number- 
ing some forty or fifty thousand, along whose 
rivers villages and cities are tpringing up as it 
by magic, whose prairies are teeming with the 
fruits of free and educated industry, are told that 
they cannot frame their domestic institutions, 
even to keeping back " the bitter water that 
causeth the curse." 

Only a few days since, the Legislature of Kan- 
sas enacted a law prohibiting slavery within the 
Territory, and another pliant Adrainistration-pro- 
slavery Executive vetoes the bill; and that peo- 
ple, who were assured by the Democratic party 
on this floor, a year ago, that they bad age and 
experience and numbers sufficient to assume the 
rights and position of a sovereign State, if they 
would only submit to a Constitution recognising 
human bondage, are now told that they have no 
inherent or delegated power to stop the tread of 
the slave hunter. Yet what Democratic leaders, 
what Democratic organs, even in the free States, 
dare rebuke the insolence and spurn the outrage ? 
Possibly you may turn on us, and say, why do we 
object; that we were opposed to the Nebraska 
bill? You told us, in 1854, that the men of the 
North, in 1820, opposed the Missouri line; grant- 
ed. Did that give you the right, when you 
wrenched all but that from u., to turn and steal 
that little also. And when, again, yt'ii drive u? 
to the wall, and take all but the uncertain priv- 
ilege of popular rights, and tell us we must w.'^gr 
the warfare on the soil of the Territories; and, 
while we protest that you leave us so little, mun 
we quietly submit that you should finally como 
and despoil ua even of that ? 

It is due to truth to say that, in the circle of 
the Democratic family, on this subject there is 
an irrepressible conflict now waging; they differ 



about the meaning of the Constitution ; quarrel 
about the Cincinnati piatl'orni, seeming to forget 
it was designed to have a Northern as well as 
Southern exposure ; and have a furious contest 
as to what has been decided by the Dred S'.'ott 
decision. This organization will allow no toler- 
ation of individual opinion on this slavery ques- 
tion. You may claim it, as did Galileo and 
Wicklitie, at the ritk of the a-ialhemas of a re- 
ligious despoiistn. See the political executions 
of the last iwo years. No mntltr how humble 
the man, how unimportant his situation, if he 
suffered the least glimmer of anti-slavery senti- 
ment he must Jje excluded from the pale of the 
party, as a warning to all others that a like re- 
bellion should merit and receive p. like fate. 

Pause for a moment, and see the positions 
Democratic leaders must assume in waging this 
unholy war to extend slavery. Senator Jeffek- 
bON Davis said, in MiSisissippi, in July last: 

" Thus, for a loug ptriod error sc;ittered bur socd broad- 
cast, while reason, iii over conQUcucf, stood passive. The 
recent free distntsiou by the press and ou thj lorum have 
<bspellcd delusions ivltich luid obscured the minds of a geru:ra- 
tion, until even among ourselves it was more easy to lind 
the apolurjist than the defouier." 

Alexander H. Stephens, the acknowledged 
leader of the Democracy on thi;3 floor during the 
last Congress, said in Georgia, iu June last : 

" Negro slavery is but in its intincy ; it is a mere problem 
of our Government; our fathers did iwt understand it. 1 
nranl (hat thepMir men <f llie SouLk were once againd it, but 
'ifivij did not understand it." 

Negro slavery in its infancy 1 That fact must 
be consoling to those exceedingly pious gentle- 
men who are claiming for African slavery a Di- 
vine origin, from the curse denounced against 
Canaan in the frantic rage of Noah's delirium. 
In its infancy I When gentlemen justity it be- 
cause it has existed in all ages of the world. 
The gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. Keitt,] 
on this floor, adds his testimony : 

" The sentiments which the great men of the Rcvo'iaiou 
entertained upon the question of slavery are immaterial to 
me. The in,si:tut;ou had not been distusscd ; its character 
and capacities had not been tested; beddcs, they were imbued 
with tlie influence of the Fremli encyclopedist!:, and ivcreajl'ected 
by tlte abstractions 'f tlw Declaraiion of Imiepmdcnce." 

The gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Smitu] said: 

'* The gentleman refers to the scutiracuts of distinguished 
revolutionary men, and asks me if I repudiate them, ^ir, 
many of those seniimeTit.';, of course, I repudicUe; many of 
those senliiiLtnss arefoUse in philosophy and unsound in fad." 

As gentlemen daily pass through the rotunda 
of this Capitol, do they ever pauie to consider 
the magnificent painting representing their 
fathers in Congress signing this now vilified 
Declaration of Independence? Why, sir, since 
the world began, save the band of Apostles 
gathered with Christ at the last supper, never 
has there been convened so grave, deliberate, 
and determined a body of men. When you are 
in the presence of the lifelike representation of 
your patriot fathers, there must come down a 
withering rebuke from the silent canvas, reprov- 
ing your ingratitude and infidelity, in stigma- 
tizing the woik before them as abstractions and 
the frenzies of French encyclopedists. 

Sir, such impiety needs only the rebuke of 
silence. Where are the Danites who assassinate 
men if they are suspected of slandering the his- 



tory of the South ? Who now are the cold- 
bloodi d slanderers of your history and the mem- 
ory of your great men? Why not seize your 
canes, and clutch your knives, and drive such 
men from your borders? 

Has it come to this — the solemn Devlaratioa 
of your own fathers you call generalities and ab- 
stractions — their well-settled principles of free- 
dom you stigmatize as delusious — their estab- 
lished policy and laws you rebuke, uudi r the in- 
solent arrogance that the public men of the 
South " did liot uuderstand the system of negro 
slavery ; " and this in face of the fact that for 
years ihey had been struggling against the des- 
potism of royalty to suppress slavery and the 
slave trade. 

You have a right to change your views and 
condemn your fathers. We have a right to pur- 
sue their policy and venerate their memories. 
For this, you may reproach and proscribe, and 
deprive us of all participation iu the administra- 
tion of this Government; yet you caunct control 
us by threats of danger or blandishments of 
power. For us, " Is not the gleaiung of the 
grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of 
Abi Ezer?" 

Do you ever reflect upon the treason of your 
insane threats? Said the member from South 
Carolina, [Mr. Keitt :] 

" The South will resist, to the overthrow of the Govorn- 
meat, the ascendency of the Republican jxii ly. should tho 
P.epablican party succeed at the next Pre.siJoutial eioctiou, 
my advice to the South is, to snap the cords of tho Union at 
ouce and forever." 

Said the member from Mississippi, [Mr. Da- 
vis:] 

" The Black Republicans showed their organized robollion 
when they presented Fremont as a sectional candidate for 
the rres;uency, as a representative of their system of frco 
labor in opposition to our system uY slave labor. Against 
that rebelliouwe intend to act; we mean to put it down, 
even if we have to do it with tho bayonet. Gentlemen of 
tho Republican party, I warn you; presjnt your sectional 
candidate for 1860, elect him as a representative of your 
system of labor, and we of the South will tear the Constitu- 
tion into pieces." 

Sir, craze your brain, nerve your arm, precip- 
itate this issue upon us, and we are ready. Our 
Northern fathers were told by an English officer, 
" Disperse, ye rebels ; throw down your arms, 
and disperse." Their answer, if necessary, shall 
be our answer. 

He continued : 

" I, ti5-day, have more atfectioa for an Elnglishman thaa 
a Black Republican." 

Quite likely. Many of the men in the South, 
during the Revolution, experienced the same 
thrill of joy in loving a British red-coat, or a 
Hessian child-butcher, better than an American 
patriot or a colonial rebel. 

You also threaten to dissolve the Union in 
case another demand is not complied with. The 
member from Georgia [Mr. Cuawford] said : 

" We have now four million slaves. In some twenty-fivo 
years hcuce we will have eight million. Wo demand expan- 
sion. We will have expansion, in spito of tho RopubliCiin 
party." 

The member from Mississippi [Mr. Singleton] 
said: 

" We have now four million slaves in fifteen States ; wf 
will, in fifty years from now, have sixteen million. But ] 
tell you the iustitutiou of slavery must be sustained. Yes, 



Elf ; wc will expand this institution ; we do not intend to be 
cunflaed within our present limits ; and there arc not men 
enough in all your borders to coerco threo million armed 
men iu llie South." 

Have you, gentlemen, made any calculation 
where you will expand your institution when you 
have withdrawn from the Union ? Have you the 
madness and folly to believe that you could wrest 
it from the States who retain their allegiance to 
the Constitution and Government ? 

There is yet another plank in this modern Dem- 
ocratic platform. Mr. Keitt adds : 

"It is also incontrovertible that all the inhabit;ints of a 
State cannot be educated ; the ordinance of God couderuiis 
mankind to labor, and certain menial occnpalious are incom- 
patible with mental cultivation." 

Does the slaveholder impiously claim to be 
above mankind, sp as to be beyond the reach of 
the ordinance of God ? Are you so privileged 
and exalted an order, that you are not required to 
yield allegiance to that ordinance? You insist 
Canaan shall be kept under the curse of excited 
Noah. By what right do you endeavor to skulk 
from the ordinance, given by the Almighty him- 
self: " iu sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days 
of thy life ; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou 
eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ? '' 
This explains the hostility of Southern Democ- 
racy to free men, free labor, and free schools. 

Freemen — laboring men of the North — and, if 
it be not treasonable, of the South, are you will- 
ing to aid in extending into the common Territo- 
ries a system whose corner-stone is the ignorance 
of the people, and which will establish the policy 
that labor "is incompatible with mental cultiva- 
tion ? " Must the honest-hearted laborer, as he 
reads the record of science, history, and govern- 
ment, in a free press, and around whose humble 
fireside, after the toil and sweat of the day, from 
the various libraries of the land, are poured out 
the treasures of all ages; and in the mind of his 
child, if there be a diamond, it will be developed 
by education, and finally shine in his country's 
history ; is he to be told thR,t mental cultivation 
is incompatible with labor? 

And you now declare, in case this system of 
oppression and ignorance be not expanded, you 
will sever every tie that binds the Union. You 
say you have counted the cost. Have you the 
vision of a seer, to reach far down through coming 
time, and see all the horrors of such an event? 
They will not end in decades, centuries, or cycles. 
If you force dissolution upon us, we oan only 
hope — 

" If it were done, when 'tis done, then, 'twere well 
It were done quickly." 

On this suViject, how appropriate to-daj' is the 
language of Lewis Cass and Daniel S. Dickin- 
son on the 1st day of March, 1847, in t'he Senate 
Chamber. Said the former, speaking of disso- 
lution; 

'' That word has got to bo quite a common one iu our na- 
tional vocabulary. It frightened mo once ; but I have seen 
it so often, that its face has become quite familiar, and 
docK not inspire the least dread. I recognise it as an old ac- 
qu.iinUincc, changing from time to time its drapery, but still 
preserving its identity. Our constituents, the American 
people, will take cure of us and the crisis, too, and they will 
still lalce care of the Union, and guard it from any unholy 
touch." 

The latter said : 



" I have DO gloomy forebodings over the dissolu.linn of tho 
Union : politicians could not dissolve it, if they would ; and 
would not, if they could. It will live <in, sir, long after we 
are laid in the dust. I'illar after pillar shall strengthen ana 
adorn the edifice, while other.«, tho veneriiblc and gray 
headed, who are yet unborn, shall occui)y these seats, and 
these walls echo to their voice." 

Why will yoa not, then, heed the counsel of 
the statesmen of the past and present? You 
profess much sympathy for the free laborers of 
the North, and brand them as white slaves. 
Take within your sympathies the free whites of 
the South, and unite with us to give them free 
homes in the West InfJst not upon your ex- 
pansion theory, nor plant on that virgin soil a 
servitude which will disgrace them ; for your 
own people feel more keenly than we, that — 
'• Tho badge of tho slave is the scorn of the free." 

Charge not upon us the folly of your weak- 
ness. Envy not the North. You possess now 
more than half the Union, to the e.xclusion of 
Northern freemen ; with a climate genial, to nur- 
ture the fruits of the tropics, and a soil rivalling 
that of the Nile in richness. Saving the blight 
of slavery, " among the smooth stones of the 
stream is thy portion; " while the North wrestles 
with the waterfall, digs into the mountains, 
struggles with the quarry, and cultivates, here 
and there, a fruitful valley. Be content to let 
slavery wear itself out on your own soil. You 
may suffer plagues and pestilence ; you may 
harden your hearts, as did Pharaoh ; but in 
God's own time He will bid you "let the people 
go ; " and He will lead them to a land of rest. 

You say the slave, in many cases, kisses the 
hand that smites him, and prefers his yoke to 
freedom. So did the Israelites, even when the 
Lord was their pillar of cloud by day and fire by 
night ; for in the wilderness they hankered for 
the yokes and flesh-pots of Egypt. Ages of op- 
pression will destroy the ability and inclination 
to resist. 

" Prolonged endurance tames the bold." 

Byron makes Bonnivard, the brave prisoner of 
Chillon, to say : 

'■ It was, at length, tho same to me, 
Fettered or fetterless to be ; 

I loarnod to love despair. 
My very chains and I grew friends ; 
fcfo much a long communion tends 

To make us what we are." 

Gentlemen talk about the brute force of ma- 
jorities, and declare they will not submit. We 
are now told, "Dare you but exercise the right 
of freemen, in a clear and constitulioaal mode; 
elect for President a man of yottr choice, and 
believe in the teachings of all parties down to 
1848, and 'the dogs of war shall be let loose 
upon you.' " Already you are making appro- 
priations of thousands to build arsenals, to pur- 
chase arms, and are now mustering forces, as 
you say, to threaten and coerce the North. You 
may bind in chains the body of } our slave ; you 
may subject him to the lasii and imprisonment; 
but when, in the insolence of long-enjoyed power, 
you seek to coerce individual opinion arid politi- 
cal action by craven threats, did we yield we 
would deserve to be slaves. 

" Must I give way and room to your rash choler ? 
Shall I be frightened when a madman stares? " 



10 



We meet you in no unkind spirit. "We desire 
that no "son of man" should "prophesy against 
the forest of the South field." We are glad that 
you are commencing to live on your own account ; 
that is the true wealth of nations. We are grati- 
fied that you are weaving your own garments ; 
it is true they look a little rough at present, but 
persevere. After the lapse of years, (probably 
not in your time, but your posterity will see it,) 
ecience will render you much aid. All arts are 
rude among a people which is just assuming in- 
dependence of its neighbors. 

You cannot expect the advantages of ma- 
chinery, until some Yankees go down and ex- 
plain the mode and manner of its use ; for now, 
in your great rage and passport system, the 
tyranny ot travel is exceedingly irksome in your 
empire, especially to the Yankee who is at all 
fond of the free use of his limbs ; so you will 
have to forego the advantages of machinery a 
time longer. I see by one of your papers, that 
when you learn to make shoe pegs, then your 
brogans you will no longer import from the 
North ; all you want now is toleration and indus- 
try to make you a great nation. This is well 
enough, but for your frightful gasconade. You 
declare, that should a Republican President be 
elected, he can never be inaugurated in this 
Capitol. How will you prevent it? I judge from 
your military preparation you mean force. Where 
will you get your gunpowder? You make none 
south of Delaware. Where will you get your 
fire-arms? South of Mason and Dixon's line you 
manufacture cone "in all your borders. Can you 
retain it in^w, by force? If so, you will do in- 
finitely better than you did in 1814. The Eng- 
lish then, without any fear, could have crowned 
a king in your Capitol. They drove five thousand 
of your men from Bladensburg ; and although 
you knew the design of the enemy was to invade 
and burn, you retreated, and stopped not to fire 
a gun in its defence. 

1 impugn not your courage, nor reflect upon 
your motives ; I but hazard the opinion that, had 
the Capitol stood amid the rocks of New England 
or the rough hills of the North, five thousand of 
her yeomanry would have struck, and, if neces- 
sary, perished, in its defence. Since that time, 
some of your people have been very solicitous 
about the arr-hives. You know Governor Wise, 
in 185G, had Fremont been elected President, 
was prepared to march with one hundred thou- 
sand men to the Capitol, and seize the archives; 
but some persons very wickedly suggested that 
it might be the treasury he was after. Impossi- 
ble ! who ever alleged that a Southern Democrat 
was actuated by mercenary' motives ? You say 
you will magnanimously withhold the blow, if 
we will consent that the Constitution recognises 
property in man, and the corresponding right to 
take it into all the Territories of the Union. 
That we never can do, for our fathers never did, 
but guarded carefully against any such implica- 
tion. Madison said " he would not consent that 
the Constitution should recognise the idea of 
property in man." 

In the Constitution, the word "servitude" was 
Ktricken out, and the word "service" unani- 



mously inserted; the former being thought to 
express the condition of slaves, and the latter 
the obligations of free persons. The term "le- 
gally" was erased, because it was thought equiv- 
ocal, aud favoring the idea that shivery was 
legal in a moral view, and " under the laws 
thereof" substituted. Why, then, should we ad- 
mit what our fathers never conceded ? The Con- 
stitution merely recognises the right of each 
State, and the obligations of sister States, to re- 
store her fugitives, whether from service or jus- 
tice ; and as by this provision it did not pretend to 
designate what might or might not be crimes, 
leaving that with each State, any State might 
make a new and additional enumeration of 
crimes, and have her rights respected under this 
provision. So the Constitution did not legalize 
and s;',nction existing forms of labor, any further 
than protecting each State in her systems of 
labor, whatever they might be ; and should new 
forms of labor be introduced in a State, they 
would be protected in the rendition provision, 
and the Constitution not be chargeable with 
the fully'or wisdom of existing or new forms of 
labor. 

The white men of the North are now excluded 
from fifteen slave States of the Union ; they 
are driven from your borders simply because 
they exercise the right of thought and speech. 
Such as South Carolina, Guorgia, aud Kentucky, 
are, you sought to make California, Oregon, and 
Kansas. While you claim the right to carry into 
the common Territories your slaves, and the local 
law which creates them, and the public opinion 
which sustains it, you deny to the men of the 
North the right to take what is dearer to them 
than property — their principles. You deny them 
the free use of the mails ; you exercise a censor- 
ship of the press, aud inquisition of individual 
thought, more revolting than a Russian despot- 
ism. Even here, in the calmness of deliberation, 
the distinguished gentleman from the noble State 
of Missouri, where the bonds of slavery are weak- 
ening and dissolving, where the steam engine is 
pufiing the dark wave to the remote South, [,\ir. 
Anderson,] said : 

" I now predict that, unless a rcvohition shall take place 
in thi! publii; seutiuicut of thu Norlh, or which 1 have now no 
hope, within the ue.xt twelve month.';, no man IVoni that sec- 
tion of the Union will be permitlotl to travel through Iho 
Southern States, unless he brings with him eviilcuces oi cou- 
serv.itivo feelings and sentiments towards the people of tho 
South aud its domestic institutions." 

These, sir, are the liberal principles of that 
parly which knows no North, no South, no East, 
no West, and is self-boasting in the virtues of a 
great nationality, and clamorous over the fact 
that Fremont had no electoral votes in the fiiteen 
States wliere just such intolerance as has been 
thundered in our ears dominates over all. Re- 
move the despotism of opinion and anarchy of 
violence from your o'wn people, and an unfettered 
judgment in your own Sttites would rally thou- 
sands around the standard of free labor, free 
schools, and free soil. See the once proud State 
of Virginia, laying her hands on the mails, aud 
authorizing some prejudiced justice to sit in judg- 
tnent and condemn to the flames all publications 
that excite his ire. And this, beyond all things. 



11 



shows the outrage and enormity of the system, 
which cannot be sustained, except upon the de- 
struction of all those rights which should be the 
boast of a free people. 

A few years r.go, a half-naturalized Hungarian 
was seized in Smyrna by Austria, and claimed 
as a criminal against her laws. This nation was 
aroused, and American cannon would have echo- 
ed along the classic shores of the Mediterranean, 
and American blood crimsoned her waters, had 
a hair of Martin Koszta's head been injured. Mr. 
Buchanan is begging for the army and navy to 
redress the rights of American citizens in Mexico 
and Central America j yet here, within the States, 
upon the citizens thereof, outrages are commit- 
ted which should mantle the cheeks of barbarism 
with shame, and no lamentation comes from the 
solicitous Executive. This system of outrage, 
this reign of terror, you seek to extend over all 
the land. 

You charge upon the North an occasional out- 
break of disorder, for which the guilty are duly 
punished, while your own people violate the laws 
of your State and the natural rights of the white 
man, condemning him without trial, and inflict- 
ing barbarous punishment without judicial judg- 
ment and sentence. Some men of South Caroli- 
na arrested a free white laborer, mobbed him in 
the streets of their city, subjected him to stripes 
at the hands of a slave, all in violation of the 
laws of the State. You may boast of your chiv- 
alry, but such men are dastards, whom it would 
be '' base flattery to call cowards.'' The slave 
trader lands a cargo of merchandise from Africa, 
and your juries refuse to punish the pirate. A 
few months ago, a woman with a sick child was 
driven from a village of Georgia, because she 
had written to her friends at the North her im- 
pressions about slavery. A whole community, 
the Bereans, were exiled from the soil of Ken- 
tucky for no crime ; they were only obnoxious 
in entertaining the opinions proclaimed by Wash- 
ington and Jefl'erson. Are such the men you 
propose arming to seize the Capitol and archives ? 
Rest assured, braver men than they fled from the 
British in 1814. 

The gentleman 

The gentleman must ex- 



The gentleman has stated 
The gentleman must ex- 



Mr. CRAWFORD. 

Mr. VAN WYCK. 
case me. 

Mr. CRAWFORD, 
as a fact 

Mr. VAN WYCK. 
cuse me. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. 1 understand tho gentle- 
man to state as a fact that a woman was driven 
from Georgia with a sick child. I desire to say 
that I never heard of it before ; it is news to me ; 
and I do not believe a word of it. 

Mr. VAN WYCK. The gentleman does not 
read the papers, then ; that is all I have to an- 
swer. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. Will the gentleman give 
the authority for his assertion ? 

Mr. VAN WYCK. I will furnish it some other 
time. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. Then you have no author- 
ity with you. 



Mr. BINGHAM. He says he has it not here. 

Mr. VAN WYCK. Your despotism is as gall- 
ing upon the whites as the blacks. Slavery must 
prescribe what books they shall read. Your 
population is about eight million ; yet you con- 
trol their destinies and compel their opinions. 
How many men from the South on this floor are 
non-slaveholders? How many in the Senate, 
and among the foreign appointments? Your 
soil was invaded by Brown and a few followers, 
and Virginia is convulsed from centre to circum- 
ference. In violation of all law, your citizens 
were shot down, and you had a right to feel 
outraged and indignant. Governor Wise headed 
the Virginia militia ; the Federal Executive sent 
sixteen marines, who captured Brown — about 
the same number, I believe, Jackson sent, in 
1832, to conquer South Carolina, and place her 
in her proper orbit in the political heavens. In- 
nocent women and children were murdered in 
Kansas ; her virgin soil was moistened with the 
blood of Free-State men, and the light of her 
burning dwellings flamed against the midnight 
sky. The Executive was implored ; but Pierce, 
upon looking through the Constitution, could 
fiud no authority to interfere ; and the darkest 
page of our history was written in blood. A 
slave gets loose, and is committing grand lar- 
ceny by running away with himself; no neces- 
sity for consultation then; the lightning flashes 
the message to use the land and naval force to 
restore the fleeing fugitive, and the court-house 
of a free Commonwealth is surrounded by bayo- 
nets and chains. Your homes in Virginia were 
invaded ; we regret and sympathize with you ; 
but have you no regrets or sympathies for the 
homes, just as sacred as yours, invaded in Afri- 
ca ? Had you tears for the children that were 
rendered fatherless, and the wives widowed and 
driven shelterless, upon the open prairie in Kan- 
sas, by men having no claim to manhood but 
the name? 

You reproach the North because, while we 
condemn the crime, we admire the noble quali- 
ties of manhood which Brown possessed. Your 
own Wise did as much ; he said he was " brave, 
honest, and sincere ; " and is it no cause of re- 
gret that such noble traits should be wasted in a 
reckless enterprise? You think it impossible 
that the man can be separated from the crime. 
Do you not remember, in the darkest hour of 
the Revolution, when almost all was lost but 
courage and hope, the young, the brave, and 
accomplished English officer descended to the 
character of a spy, and, through Arnold's 
treachei'y, well-nigh eclipsed the rising sua 
of our independence ? Can the mind conceive 
a greater crime, not only against America, 
but freedom and the world? He was arrested, 
tried, and executed ; and notwithstanding the 
enormity of the offence, Washington and his 
generals, and the American people, sympathized 
with the heroic bearing and gallant address of 
the criminal ; they overlooked tho spy, and 
thought of the grand nobility of his manhood; 
and, had it not been for the exigency of the pub- 
lic service, would gladly have pardoned the of- 
fender. And at this day, no American child 



12 



reads the history of his conntry, but drops a tear 
on the page which records the fate of Andre. 

You ask the men who are born amid the free 
institutions of the North, where repose is given to 
their cradled hours in songs of universal liberty, 
whose limbs are strengthened by the air from the 
bold mountains, and whose hearts are warmed to 
all mankind by the lessons of the Revolution and 
the teachings of the Saviour, to restrain their 
anti-slavery sentiments, and believe, with you, 
that slavery is a Divine institution. Never, sir; 
never. There is no attribute of the Almighty, no 
command of His word, no spirit of His gospel, 
that can tolerate such a sentiment. "Ye shall 
not respect persons in judgment; ye shall hear 
the small as well as the great; ye shall not be 
afraid of the face of man ; " was among the bill 
of rights God gave to the Jewish people. "A 
new command give I unto you, that ye love one 
another ; whatsoever ye would that men should 
do lo jou, do ye even so to them," was the great 
chart.'sr for man's guidance, given by the Saviour 
to both Jew and Gentile; to all the uorld. A 
necessary corollary of these great principles led, 
in many years, to the enunciation, in the Decla- 
ration of American Independence, that ail men 
are created equal, and that each has an inalien- 
able right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness. 

While you eclipse the mind and dwarf the soul, 
you concede to the slave both, in prohibiting to 
him all means of knowledge by reading, and ad- 
mitting him to be subject to the saving power of 
the atonement; you say that slavery is a great 
missionary institution, redeeming from heathen- 
ism and converting to Christianity; you say that 
slaves become Christian men ; that the Bible 
teaches slavery. Why, then, do you not allow 
them to read that Bible, so they may comfort the 
unfulfilled longings of their souls, by a fuU reali- 
zation (hat their lot is the will of the Almighty, 
and " thus saith the Lord " has enjoined it? 

The distinguished gentleman from South Caro- 
lina, [Mr. Keitt,] after arrogating to the South 
all the glory of arts, and arms, w.nd literature, 
acquired by the nation, then adds, speaking of 
the North : 

" What achievements of arms have illustrated their es- 
cutcheons? Sir, if a Northern army should oomo down to 
subjugate the South, it will be the lirst one in our history 
that eucamped on Southern soil. Will it coiuo now, when it 
did not come in Uie trials of the Revolution? lu 17S1, when 
all the forces of the British wore gathering upon the soil of 
Virginia, what help had she from the North ? " 

The gentleman is evidently alarmed at his oWn 
shadow. Sir, it has never been thought or inti- 
mated that we are to subjugate the South. 
"What achievements of arms have illustrated 
their escutcheons ?" Has the gentlemau forgot- 
ten the battle-fields of the Revolution and the 
w-ar of 1812? I will not charge that he willingly 
seeks to cast an imoutation on the patriotism 
and courage of our fathers. While I honor the 
memory of his ancestors, I would rescue that of 
my own from unjust aspersions, and hurl back 
the calumny in the face of its author. I regret 
that, in the blindness of fanaticism and a reck- 
less sectionality, the distinguished gentleman 



should malign the Northern patriots of the Rev- 
olution. 

Sir, I will indulge in no unkind remark to 
wound the feelings of any man; but the charge 
must be met, and history vindicated, let the con- 
sequences fall where and as they may. One 
other gentleman spoke of Massachusetts burning 
witches in the ancient times. Does he not know 
that your own people burn slaves at the stake, 
and it seems to awaken no horror in your minds? 

Mr. DAVIS, of Mississippi, (interrupting.) I 
pronounce the gentleman a liar and scoundrel. 
I pronounce the gentleman's assertion false — ut- 
teily false. » 

Mr. VAN WYCK. My time is short, and I hope 
not to be interrupted. 

Mr. DAVIS, of Mississippi. You have no right 
to utter such foul and false slanders. 

Mr. G ARTRELL. I rise to a point of order. 
It is, that no member upon this floor has a right 
to libel the people of any section of this coun- 
try, and then deny to th.e Representatives of that 
people the right to reply. I pronounce the as- 
sertion made by the gentleman false and un- 
founded. [Cries of " Order ! " on the Republi- 
can side.] 

Mr. VAN WYCK. I have heard such words 
before, and I am not to be disturbed or interfered 
with by any blustering of that sort. I am not 
here to libel any part of the Union. 

Mr. DAVIS, of Mississippi. Will you go out- 
side of the District of Columbia, and test the 
question of personal courage with any Southern 
man? 

Mr. VAN WYCK. I travel anywhere, and 
without fear of any one. For the firsst eight 
weeks of this session, you stood upon this floor 
continually libelling the North and the people of 
the free Stales, charging them with treason, and 
all manner of crimes, and now you are thrown 
into great rage when I tell you a iew fiicts. 

Mr. DAVIS, of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New- 
York cannot be interrtipted, except by a point of 
order; and the Chair appeals to gentlemen of 
the Committee not to violate the rules of the 
House. The Chair trusts they will not do so. 

Mr. DAVIS, of Mississippi. I shall observe 
them, sir, if others do; but I certainly will not 
permit Southern people to be slandered. 

Mr. VAN WYCK. If gentlemen are so sensi- 
tive in regard to their own feelings, I ask them 
to be as sensitive also to the feelings of others. 
If they were, we would not have had such whole- 
sale denunciations of the people of the North as 
we had during the first eight weeks of this ses- 
sion. 

Massachusetts has able sons to defend her rep- 
utation ; but I do know she was the first to light 
the flames of the Revolution, and I believe she 
will be the last to desert the watch-fires of the 
Union. The eloquent gentleman from Virginia, 
[Mr. BoTELER,] in his endeavor to fasten an un- 
kind imputation on the North, in my judgment 
misconceived history when he said Virginia, ia 
17T5, sent succor lo Massachusetts. There was 
no narrow sectionalism in those days. When 
the militia of his native county marched to Mas- 



13 



eachaaoUs, it was to fight the battlea of Virginia; 
it was to vindicate the rights and strike down 
the enemies of Virginia. The battle for your 
rights, gentlemen, was fought on Northern soil ; 
jour homes, for a long while, were untouched by 
the foreign invader; for many years, your build- 
ings were left free from the torch of the Hessian 
incendiaries, your women from indignities, and 
•your helpless children from a cruel death. All 
this was sustained in the North; her commerce 
dismantled, her fields laid waste, her towns and 
villages sacked and burned, her unoffending 
children and woman massacred. Could the 
men of the South do less than rush to the aid ot 
.their own cause, by succoring Massachuielts? 
The impulse of freedom was equally strong in 
Virginia and Massachusetts; it was the cause of 
the United Colonies: but Massachusetts, then, as 
now, for her hatred of tyranny, was specially 
designated as the victim, and led the van in free- 
dom's army. Your fathers were not the men to 
repose in listless inactivity ; and, having no en- 
emy at home to fight, they were willing to spill 
their blood and lay their bones on the cold hills 
of the North. Let him be anathema, marauatha, 
who is not williag to do justice to you and them. 

The glory of the men of the Revolution, from 
whatever section, belongs not to the North or the 
South. It is a union of glory which can never 
be dissolved. It belong-j to the world, wherever 
Liberty is worshipped, and Freedom receives the 
incense of her struggling millions. Sir, no en- 
mity, however malignant, chxx blacken their mem- 
ory. They are as far above your reach as the bold 
and heaven-defying eagle is above the e;irth- 
crawliug and hissing serpent. You boast, and you 
have a right to boast, that you gave us a Wash- 
ington ; and, like Moses of old, he led our armies 
to the promised land; but his i Joshuas and 
Aarons he gathered from the North. Because 
you gave us a Washington, and his bones rest 
on Southern soil, we mean to preserve the Union 
forever. Mount Vernon and Monticello shall 
long be the Mecca and Medina of the Northern 
pilgrim. 

Washington was clothed with absolute power 
over the army. When he thought you .vanted a 
general, he sent you Lincoln, then Gates. At 
Camden, you had a sufficiency of troops. Your 
army numbered four thousand, and the enemy 
two thousand ; yet you were overborne. I would 
scorn to charge it to a lack of courage. Then 
he sent the old Quaker of Rhode Island, General 
Greene, and he saved the men of Ca.rolina. 

After tlje attack on Charleston, in 1776, you 
were free from a foreign foe until 1779. Then 
the enemy removed a part of his forces to the 
South, because he expected sympathy and suc- 
cor from the Carolinas and Georgia, on account 
of the great number of tories iu those States ; 
and he did receive it. At the battle of King's 
Mountain, in the enemy's ranks of fifteen hundred, 
probably thirteen hundred were Carolina and 
Georgia tories ; hence the opening of a new seat 
of war in the South. I speak not to your injury. 
No country ever produced truer, braver patriots, 
than the Carolinas and Georgia. They had a 
steru conflict. They had to fight the English on 



the coast, and their tory countrymen at th( 
hearthstone. 

The greatest cruelty and spoliation you suffer- 
ed was at the hands of your native tories, and 
from threats of rebellion and violence. 1 con- 
clude their descendants are numerous on that 
soil. With their blood, seem to have descended 
their principles. But your brave men and women 
of the Revolution we can never forget. You may 
proscribe, imprison, and subject to stripes, oui 
countrymen ; distract and divide this great Con- 
federacy; divorce yourselves from us with all 
the bitter, burning passions of brotherly hate 
yet the memory of your dashing Marion and im- 
petuous Sumter, the heroism of your women a' 
Charleston, will be cherished as long as freedom 
has a shrine in the hearts of the American 
peopie. ^ 

Would Washington, the son of Virginia, see 
his mother iu jeopardy, and not rush to her re- 
lief? In 1781, when Cornv/allis appeared in 
Virginia, although Clinton had a large fleet in 
the bay and a large army in the city of New 
York, with brave impetuosity he marched his 
Northern army, composed of men of all sections 
of the Union, and, with their tents, they '• en- 
camped on Southetn soil ; " and the evening of 
the 18th day of October, 1781, drew its mantle 
over the mangled and lifeless Northern soldier 
on the field of Yorktown. Virginia's visit " had 
been returned," and the evidences were the bones 
left whitening on your sunny plains. Will gen- 
tlemen talk of Northern courage? Where were 
fought the battles of 1812, 1813, and 1814? 
Whence came the seamen that humbled the 
proud navy of England, and gave us distinction 
on the seas ? It is true, you had your splendid 
victory at New Orleans; but that did not con- 
quer a peace, for the treaty was signed before 
that battle was fought. Still, that did not de- 
tract from the glory of Jackson, or the valor of 
his troops. In all our wars, the North and the 
South conjointly achieved the victory, and are 
equally entitled to the glory. 

Sir, iu reading of the men of the Revolution, 
I have not been wont to limit their patriotism 
by State lines, or estimate their valor by the 
country where born. Whether the rough blasts 
of the North hardened their frames, or a South- 
ern sun quickened their blood, to me, whether 
from the North or South, like the men whom 
Zebah slew at Tabor, " each one resembled the 
children of a kiug." 

Notwithstanding he now claims for the South 
all the glory of the past, the same distinguished 
gentleman, in his own State, iu 185G, lamenting 
that South Carolina had no history, said : 

"Whore is your history? It is yot in tr.Tlition. Tho 
stniggic is comiri!?, the I'ature is gloomy und lowLiring, unU. 
I caunot tell what it will bring forth. Now is Ihu i:mv. 
Every mumorabio people, at all times, have hail a liistory 
wiitten ou their moiiunieuts, on their pyraiuids, or in book.-j. 
.'ikjiith Caroima has noue. A lew years ago, your greati-st 
Man died. The nation mourned, and Clay a:id XVe'o.-^feP 
strewed tlowurs upon his t.omb. Finally, he Cftnio in a s-lun 
clolhed iu oi'ape ; the State mourned; but uo moiiuuiont 
rises to mark his fame." 

Such was the mournful condition of South 
Carolina, as faithfully portrayed by one of her 
most eloq^uent and earnest defenders. Why had 



14 



South Carolina no history? Why had Calhoun 
no monumeat? You will find a ready answer 
in the acts and declarations of your fathers. Now, 
such as South Carolina is, do you wish to make 
the States hereafter to be added to the Union? 
Do you wish to entail upon them an inheritance 
which, in after years, will compel from one of 
her sons so mournful a eulogium? 

Gentlemen on this floor here have been dolor- 
ous in their lamentations as to the heavy bur- 
dens they have suffered since the adoption of the 
Constitution, and that they have now become 
insupportable ; and they have not the philosophy 
to say they can 

" Rather bear those ills they have, 
Thau fly to others that they know not of." 

As we have had Democratic Administrations 
most of the time of their oppression, 'now, in or- 
der to relieve the miseries, real or imaginary, I 
know of no other remedy but a change of rulers ; 
and for their sakes we must make a vigorous 
effort to restore the Republic to the principles of 
Madison and Jefferson, so that their troubled 
spirits may find rest. 

You know a certain remnant of Northern De- 
mocracy is a faithful ally. It has bent and bowed 
at your command. No doubt the old Free-Soil 
leaders believe as they did in 1848; but you 
must now allow them to assume any disguise, 
adhere to any standard, if they can only be camp- 
followers of a victorious legion. But you are 
determined, if they enter the Charleston Conven- 
tion, it must not be erect and with banners fly- 
ing, but as the serpent when he entered the gar- 
den. You mean that the only entrance shall be 
through a "hole in the wall;" but when ihey 
enter, they will find " greater abominations '" than 
appeared in Ezekiel's vision. They will find 
" that the bed is shorter than that a man can 
stretch himself on it, and the covering narrower 
than that he can wi'ap himself in it." Treat 
them kindly, for they speak " half in the speech 
of Ashdod," and will have to lisp, for they " can- 
not frame to pronounce" your shibboleth. 

You taunt us with cowardice ; that we have 
not the courage to do as Brown did. Slay it long 
be our boast, as it is now our pride, that we have 
QOt the courage to do wrong. 

<' I dare do all that may hecome a man ; 
Who dares do more, is none." 

Why this boast of courage? Are you not 
aware that bravery is an instinct of the man and 
brute creation? You see it in the gentle wren 
and the bold eagle, in the tiniest insect and the 
king of the forest, in all nations, in every age of 
the world, in all climates, and under all forms of 
society. You never heard of a nation lacking 
bravery. It is not the result of education or re- 
ligion ; but the nearer you reach the barbarian 
and uncivilized, the stronger the instinct, the 
more stubborn the bravery, the greater indiffer- 
ence to torture and death. See the Golhs and 
Vandals, as they poured out of the cold and 
crloomy recesses of the North, and overran the 
polished Roman Empire. See the Russian heart 
stand unyielding before the science-directed mis- 
siles of the Allies. See the North American 
savage, with soul unsubdued, ready to brave all 



dangers in battle. Your knowledge of history 
will teach you that the most unconquerable 
bravery comes from the cold climates and rough 
regions of northern countries. Again I ask, why 
do gentlemen thus talk? Mark the first and 
second wars with England. Go home, and ask 
the remnant of the gallant Palmetto regiment, 
who received the shock of battle on the plains ot 
Mexico, where stood the New York volunteers, 
who, with them side by side, were in the thickest 
of the fight, at Chnrubusco, Cerro Gordo, and 
Chepultepec ; and, when your gallant Butler fell 
at the head of the regiments of my State and 
yours, Northern warriors joined yours to carry 
him from the field, and regret that one so brave' 
had fallen? Ask your own regiment what they 
think of Northern bravery. 

In the history of the country you provoked and 
incited a controversy in which you met Northern 
bravery face to face on the plains of Kansas, and 
you quailed before it and fled. Ask your border- 
rnffian banditti what they think of Northern 
courage ? After the fight at Ossawatomie, where 
Brown received his cognomen, your men cowered 
at the very thought of meeting the stern freemen 
of the North, sustained by right, in battle array, 
and they made a precipitate flight, not waiting 
for the morning dawn, in spite of just such 
vaunts and boasts as you daily make on the floor 
of this House. Talk no more of Northern courage. 
You have felt their steel and seen their metal. 
They went not to meet in bloody strife, but to 
carve them out homes and fortunes amid those 
boundless prairies ; but you met them as enemies, 
hedged up your highways, prevented their pas- 
sage over your rivers by cannon, and compelled 
them to toil with arms in the furrow; "for the 
builders, every one, had his sword girded by his 
side, and so bililded, and half of them held the 
spears from the rising of the morning till the 
stars appeared." Sir, these men went as men of 
peace : 

" They crossed the prairies as of old 
Our lathers crossed the sea, 
To make the West, as they the East, 
The homestead of the free." 

But, sir, while bravery is an instinct, true 
courage is the result of an educated head and 
disciplined breast ; not to delight in the exhi- 
bition of physical ferocity, for mere gratification 
or personal resentment, but courageous from 
principle, to resist aggression and defend the 
right, at all hazard and every sacrifice. 

Gentlemen have rebuked the great State which, 
in part, I represent. Sir, she needs no defence 
at my hands. Unlike South Carolina, she has a 
history written in books ; also in the blood of her 
fathers, and the battle-fields of the Revolution 
and the second war ; upon her monuments and 
her aqueducts; in all her industrial, commercial, 
mechanical, manufacturing, benevolent, and edu- 
cational enterprises. It is written upon her 
mountain sides; by the banks of her rivers, and 
upon her flowing streams ; in her thousands of 
miles of telegraph, railroad, and canal naviga- 
tion ; in her commerce, that whitens every sea, 
and floats the stars and stripes in every port of 
the wide, wide world. When did she ever hesi- 



16 



tate to respond to the demands of her country, 
whether the call was for treasure or blood? The 
craven, traitorous notes of disunion are never 
heard in her borders, from the Canada frontier 
to the valley of the Susquehanna, from the inland 
seas to the crested waves of the Atlantic. 

Let me speak of my own people — the district 
I more immediately represent. In the days of 
the Revolution, her soil was pressed with the 
foot of the invader, and her women and children 
felt the knife and tomahawk and merciless bar- 
barities of savage warfare. Through the valley 
of the Mamakating and by the mountains of 
Minisick 

" Xho mammoth came, the foe, the monster Brandt, 
With all his howliug, desolating band." 

On the evergreen mountains and by the crystal 
streams of Sullivan, and in the valleys of Orange, 
rest the bones of those who nobly fought and 
fell. The graves of those brave men have never 
been violated by the steps of the disunionist, or 
their long repose disturbed by the sound of re- 
bellion. In that district still stands the old man- 
sion occupied by Washington ; in it the same 
chair in which he sat, and the same table on 
which he wrote his celebrated answer to the 
mutinous letter of Armstrong, and presented to 
the world the spectacle of an army " victorious 
over its enemies, victorious over itself." On the 
same spot, too, he disbanded bis grand army. 

You reproiich us because we will not do the 
menial service of hunting down your runaway 
slaves. There is not a man on this floor, of your 
own number, who would thus demean his man- 
hood or disgrace his nobility. In my district, 
there may be tvro or three men who believe with 
you that slavery is a Divine institution, and ought 
to be extended. There are none who would re- 
sist the execution of your fugitive slave law; but 
I am frank and proud to tell you, I do not believe 
there is one who would place his hand upon the 
heaving breast of the fleeing fugitive who is 
panting for liberty as the hart panteth for the 
water-brooks, although there be symbols of 
ownership, in the brand of the master on his 
cheek, the rust cf the iron on his limbs, and the 
scars of the lash on his back. No, sir; I rejoice 
that there is not one who, if he gave him a cup 
of cold water, would not feel that he could claim 
the blessing, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto 
one of the least of these my brethren, ye have 
done it unto me." Not one who, if asked for 
bread, would give him a stone ; if asked for a 
fish, would give him a serpent. 

Because we do this, you say we are no longer 
Democrats. The people of the North can read 
and think ; they are in a land of churches and 
free schools. When Pierce, in less than two 
years alter his election, betrayed the Democracy 
into the hands of the slave trader, the people of 
his native New Hampshire — then and now as 
firm in Democracy as her granite hills are by the 
sounding sea — deserted the organization and re- 
buked his power. In less than two years after 
Buchanan is elected — and, outdoing Pierce, is 
willing to sell for less than thirty pieces of silver 
the constitutional rights of a free people into the 
bands of a despotic oligarchy — the people of hia 



native Pennsylvania, now and then true to the 
principles bequeathed by JeSerson and Madi- 
son, seize the hand of the assassin of the rights 
of the people. And the Democracy of the North 
are firmly planted upon the ancient faith, that 
freedom is more desirable than servitude. The 
remote East, from New Hampshire, stretches 
forth her arras, and receives a welcome from the 
far West, even from the young sister which is 
nestled amid the head- waters of the Mississippi, 
and greet each other over the Keystone of the 
Union — " a land whose stones are iron, and out 
of whose hills thou mayest dig brass." 

The honorable member from South Carolina, 
[Mr. A'SHMORE,] in his speech on Thursday last, 
in an eloquent and glowing description of the 
South, presented to our imaginations an array of 
greater proportions than the grand army Napo- 
leon led to Moscow. They will probably take 
counsel of prudence, and remain at home ; they 
might find a Russian winter in their path. Does 
the gentleman, candid and frank as I know him 
to be, forgetthatportionof history which assures 
him that many good men in the South dreaded 
rebellion against England in consequence of the 
insecurity that would follow to slave property ? 
that this system of bondage prevented his people 
from bestowing the full measure of their abilities 
to the cause of Independence? that two of the 
serious defeats you sufl'ered in the South were 
in consequence of your chattels suddenly con- 
verMng themselves into sentient beings, and lead- 
ing the enemy upon your armies ? Are not the 
obstacles which your fathers encountered increas- 
ing every year, not only from the addition of 
numbers, but the intelligence which you say you 
are implanting in their minds? AVill the slaves 
quietly stay at home and work, while the kind- 
hearted patriarchs are engaged in the easy task 
of cha-stising the "heathen round about?" Look 
at the rigors of your fugitive slave law — the cruel- 
ties of your statutes — the jails in your own cities 
filled with slaves when you are about transport- 
ing them from place to place — the mother driving 
the cold steel to the heart of her offspring, rather 
than their limbs should be chafed with the chains 
of endless bondage — see within the very shadow 
of this Capitol, while the Representatives of 
a great and free people are deliberating, inno- 
cent, guiltless human beings driven, chained in 
gangs, guarded by armed men, and then answer 
the question. Or will you do as did good old 
Abraham — whose patriarchal system you so 
much venerate — when he heard Lot was taken 
captive, " armed his trained servants born in hia 
own house, three hundred and eighteen, and 
pursued them unto Dan." Try it ; marshal your 
black regiments — your trained servants; jou must 
be satisfied it is a Divine arrangement. You 
claim the attachment of your slaves ; they cer- 
tainly ought to love as did the trained servants 
of Abraham. You boast to have taken them into 
the covenant and circumcised them in the new 
faith. 

I will not contemplate the collision of arms 
and banquet of blood to which you invite us, for 
I believe it to be the aim of civilization and mis- 
sion of Christianity to teach 



16 



«' That right is more th.in might, 
And justice more thaa mail." 

Sir, I desire not, I will not, suffer myself to 
institute a comparison between the North and 
the South, but when gentlemen talk of armies of 
five hundred thousand to control opinion in the 
North, it must be they are talking to amuse our 
faucy ; they certainly are not weak enough to 
suppose they can excite our fears. If a book of 
two hundred pages convulses your empire, and 
is 60 deadly a epark in your dangerous mag- 
azine ; if John Brown and twenty followers 
could frighten your brave men, and make your 
women nervous, as one of your Virginia lawyers 
said in the late State trials in that State, do not 
deceive yourselves by any delusion that you can 
annihilate eighteen million freemen. 

Gentlemen tell us, in certain contingencies 
they will dissolve the Union. However much 
you desire it, whatever of power and influence 
the " Gulf squadron" may bring to bear upon 
that issue, neither you nor your children's chil- 
dren will witness that gloomy event. 

" There is no terror, Cassius, in your llireate." 
When you undertake su( h treason, there will he a 
Palmetto regiment to stand by New York, to save 
the ark of the covenant. We cannot surrender our 
principles atyour dictation. We prefer an anarchy 
of opinion to an order like the order of Warsaw, 
founded on despotism. "Peace, and at such a 
time ! " No, sirs ; you will long have to march 
to the music of the Union; that music which is 
everywhere uprising, from the fields where labor 
is repaid, and the workshops where industry is 
rewarded ; from the machinery which, through 
the instrumentality of steam, is doing the bid- 
ding of man; from the gigantic steamers that 
plow our rivers and lakes ; from the buzz of the 
electric telegraph ; and the scream of the iron 
horse. We are bound together by a common 
language, a common religion, and a common 
destiny. Majorities will still control the affairs 
of the nation. You cannot, you dare not, resist. 
We threaten not with bayonet, revolver, and 
bowie knife, but with the silent ballot, 

" Which ext'ciik"'S u freeman's will. 
As lightaiug does the will of (ioU." 

Your own people would rebuke your mad am- 
bition. Their arm of power would be raised, and 
the voice of prayer ascend to spare us the curse 
of a ruptured brotherhood. They would suffer 
you to commit no such treason against human 
hope. They never would indulge you in the ag- 
ricultural pursuit of which so flippantly you have 
spoken, " to run a burning plowshare over the 
foundations of the Republic." 

The weal or woe of nations is in the hands of 
the American people, and they never will betray 
their trust. Their progress is onward ; their aim 
is upward. Your blind and reckless infatuation 



I cannot stay the advancing column. Throw in 
I your lot with theirs, and it will be a " light thing 
I for the shadow to go down ten degrees ; " but 
I you have not the supernatural power, neither 
I would your unholy designs deserve the Almighty 
aid which would "let the shadow return back- 
ward." 

When you force this issue upon your own 
people, they will not move alone, but the spirit 
of him who was cradled in South Carolina and 
entombed in Tennessee will lead their hosts. 
When you raise the parricidal arm to stab the 
liberties of your country, you will hear the voice 
of the great Jackson, warning you now, as he 
did South Carolina in 1832, when he said: 

" And then add, without horror and remorse, this happy 
Union we will dissolve ; this picture of peace and prosperity 
wo will riefaoc ; tbis free iuteroourse we will interrupt ; thcso 
fertile fields we will deluge in blood ; the protection of that 
glorious llag we will renounce j the very name of American.s 
w-« discii-il. And for what, misUiUcn men, for what do you 
throw away these inestimable blessings? Their object is 
disunion ; but be not deceived by namc:s — disunion by arm- 
ed force is trea.son. Tell them that, compared to disunion, 
all other evil.? are light, because that brings with it an accu- 
mulation of nil ; declare that you will never talce the field 
unless the star-spangled banner of your country shall float 
over you ; that you will net be stigmatized when dead, and 
dishouorod and scorned wliile yo;i live, rts the authors of the 
Ursl attack on the Constitution of your country." 

Not only guided by the spirit and prophetic 
admonition of Jackson, but, arming themselves 
with the ancient seal of Virgiuia, representing 
Virtue as their tutelary genius, robed in the 
drapery of an Amazon, resting one hand upon 
lier lance, holding with the other a sword, 
trampling upon Tyranny under the figure of a 
prostrate man, having near him a crown fallen 
from his head, and bearing in one hand a broken 
chain, and in the other a scourge, while beneath 
the word Virginia is inscribed, sic semper tyran- 
nis ; under this sign they would march, and 
march to conquer. Then, from among the tribes 
of your own people, you would see " the shadow 
of mountains, as it they were men." It would 
be they, who would move "Birnam wood to 
Dunsinane ; " it would be they who would fur- 
nish the Macdulfa to meet you on the field. 

" Sail on, Union, strong and great ; 

Humanity, with all its fear.s, 

With all the hope of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate 1 

We Icuow what master laid thy keel, 

What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel ;' 
AVlio made each mast, and sail, and rope. 

What anvils rang, wli;it hammers beat, 

In what a forge and what a heat 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope I 

Fear not each sudden sound and shock ; 

'Tis of the wave, and not the rock ; 

'Tis but the flapping of the sail, 

And not a rout made by the gale I 

In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 

In spite of false lights on the shore, 

Sail on, nor fear to bieast the sea ; 

Our hoiuts, our hopes, are all with thee ! " 



PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1860. 

REPUBLICAN EKECUTR^E CONGRESSIONAL COiBHTTEE. 

Hon. Preston King, N. Y., (Chairman,) J. W. Grimes, Iowa,L. F. S. Foster, Conn., on the part of the Senate ; Hon. E. 
B- Washburne, Illinois, John Covode, Penn., (Treasurer,) E. G. Spaulding, N. Y., J. B. ^Ulcy, Mass., David Kilgoro, Ind., 
J. L. N. Stratton, N. J., on the part of the House of Representatives. 

During the Prosi<ifutial Campaign, Speeches and Documents will be supplied at the following reduced prices: Eight 
pages, per 100, 50 cents ; sixteen pages, per 100, $1.00 ; twenty -four pages, per 100, $1.50. Address either of the above 
Comuiitteo. GEORGE HARRINGTON, Secrciary. 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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